(formerly "KidServant's Log") Random thoughts about ministry, life, happenings, and observations from the fevered, furrowed brow of Timotheous (aka "Teacher Tim").
The opinions expressed therein are mine alone and may not always reflect the views of....well, you get the idea.

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Thursday, June 23, 2011

They say the secret to a business’ success is location, location, location. But there are also those who suggest, for the small or medium sized church, that in order to have someone present the lesson to children each week, the secret is rotation, rotation, rotation. In other words, get a bunch of volunteers, put them on the schedule to teach each week, and then no one person has to miss out on the “main service” all the time.

But as I stated in the introduction to this series, it is my humble opinion that such a weekly rotation is counterproductive to effective children’s ministry. Today, I want to sum up my thoughts, clarify my points, and lay out some suggestions both on how to have a consistent teaching structure and how a rotation could possibly work in some circumstances.

As we’ve been discussing, the three drawbacks to a weekly rotation are Inconsistent Preparation, Inconsistent Presentation, and Inconsistent Participation. To phrase it in a more positive way, during our Sunday Morning Children’s Church hour, there should be an expectation of consistency. Let me illustrate: when my daughter was in middle school, she had the opportunity to go to Japan. While there, she went out to eat at McDonald’s. I asked her what kind of food they served at the Golden Arches in Japan and she replied matter-of-factly that they had the same food there as we do here. Sure, they also had some options that were specific to their country, but overall, the McDonald’s experience was the same. And that’s true wherever you see a McDonald’s: the food is going to taste pretty much the same (which may or may not be a good thing in your opinion). That’s because McDonald’s is big on consistency. I believe that the Children’s Church experience should be a consistent one each week. The children should come in knowing that they will have a certain type of music, a certain atmosphere, a certain connection with an adult or older teen that they know will be there each week.

Now consistency does not mean “boring.” I remember Ronnie Caldwell once saying that we need just enough variety in our service to avoid the “routine ruts.” Having the same presenter each week does not mean the presentation has to be the same thing for 52 weeks out of the year. Rearrange the chairs, introduce a new character, flip the order of service…there is variety available within a kind. What we want to avoid is the pitfall of having a high-impact, multi-media experience one week and faded flannelgraph and stale cookies the next week. That’s not variety, that’s quantum shock. That’s McDonald’s serving French fries one week and porridge the next.

Besides creating a consistent atmosphere for the kids, having a consistent presenter also helps with relationship building. A caring adult who comes in and ministers to the children week after week is in a better position to remember their needs, their prayer requests, their spiritual growth. The kids get accustomed to the personality of the teacher, instead of having to adjust to a different individual and way of doing things each week.

As strongly as I feel about consistency in children’s church, I am not 100% against all kinds of rotations. In fact, if you are in a church that has a rotational schedule, here are some ideas that will help make it more workable.

1. Make the rotations longer. Instead of weekly, try monthly. Some of your volunteers may enjoy teaching for four weeks straight, then having a few months off. This will also strengthen relationship building.

2. Establish an atmosphere in which all the teachers will present their lessons and make sure the teachers know it. The teachers may be pleased to know they don’t have to re-invent the proverbial wheel each week.

3. Raise the standard for teachers with well written job descriptions. Make sure each of your teachers knows what they should be doing. Spell out your policies for absences and work on instilling a level of commitment among the teachers.

4. Encourage your teachers with training opportunities. Become their biggest cheerleader. And if it becomes clear that some of your weekly rotation volunteers want to exit, find a graceful way to help them transition out.

As for those small to mid-size churches that have discovered the joy of a consistent presenter each week, here are some quick principles, observations, and tips:

1. Have a support team. While you are responsible for the overall hour, the more people you can gather around you to help with songs, crafts, games, and just plain crowd-control, the better.

2. Stay connected with your pastor’s messages. If you have multiple services, this is easy: teach the kids in one and attend the main service in the other. But if you are in a church with only one service, take advantage of any recordings that your church does on Sunday mornings. Find a time to listen to the message and take notes.

3. Link up with other fellowship opportunities at your church. Men’s and women’s groups, Bible studies, and so on provide you with small group contact with “big people.”

4. Have substitutes ready who are trained and able to maintain the expectation of consistency in the event that you are ill, traveling, or just need a Sunday off.

I will not pretend that this series is the final word on rotations. It is based on my experiences, which means (as the commercials say), "your mileage may vary." But I do welcome your insights and observations, as we learn together in this adventure known as Children's Ministry.

They say the secret to a business’ success is location, location, location. But there are also those who suggest, for the small or medium sized church, that in order to have someone present the lesson to children each week, the secret is rotation, rotation, rotation. In other words, get a bunch of volunteers, put them on the schedule to teach each week, and then no one person has to miss out on the “main service” all the time.

But as I stated in the introduction to this series, it is my humble opinion that such a weekly rotation is counterproductive to effective children’s ministry. I believe there are three reasons why this is true. Reason number one was Inconsistent Preparation. Reason number two was Inconsistent Presentation. Today, we present reason number three:

INCONSISTENT PARTICIPATION

It’s Saturday night. You’re relaxing with your spouse when, suddenly, the phone rings. You exchange despairing glances with your spouse. The tone of the phone grows ominous. You pick up and manage a casual and cheerful, “Hello.” “Hi, it’s Burt,” the voice on the other end intones. “I really hate to do this to you,” he begins. Your shoulders sag. “But my wife reminded me of this commitment we have…and I really can’t get out of it, so I won’t be able to teach children’s church tomorrow.” You put your best smiley voice on, express sympathy for the conflict, and ensure Burt that everything will work out. When you hang up, your spouse’s eyes sum it up: “you’re not going to be able to come to the main service again, are you?”

A weekly rotation looks impressive on paper. And it can even look impressive in practice, as each individual or couple faithfully takes their turn at bat on their designated Sunday. But the reality is, not everyone is as consistent in their participation as the schedule would assume. People cancel their commitment, sometimes at the last minute, leaving their supervisor to scramble for a last minute substitute or even taking it on themselves.

There are many reasons why people cancel. Some are unavoidable, like illness or family emergencies. Some are perhaps avoidable, but certainly understandable, such as a change in vacation time or an unexpected opportunity for travel. But others leave us feeling very cold inside; such as the woman who calls and says, “I know I’m on the schedule to teach tomorrow, but we just found out last night that we’re going water skiing.” (yeah, I watched the weather forecast for Sunday…it’s a beautiful day). Or the teacher who called and said, “Tomorrow is my day, but we’ve got this reunion planned…it’s been in the works for three months now and I can’t cancel it.” (and you’re telling me this now?). And of course, there are those few who don’t call at all.

When someone who should be prepared to present a lesson is absent, it falls on someone who may not be prepared to bring the lesson. And when that happens, the expectation of consistency goes out the window. You may have a talented substitute who can bring a fairly decent lesson at the last minute. Or, you may have someone who is armed to the hilt with VeggieTale videos. There is nothing necessarily wrong with showing a last minute video in a pinch, but when the pinches become regular and frequent, the arm of our children’s ministry starts to show bruising.

By having a regular teacher (or teaching team) whose weekly responsibility is to bring the children’s church lesson, you cut down the frustration of the Saturday night phone calls and bring a consistency to the Sunday morning kid’s work. That’s not to say that the regular teacher won’t be sick or won’t have a day off, but by instilling a week by week consistency, a difference in participation becomes the exception and not the rule.

In our next (and final) installment of this series, I’m going to lay out some yays and nays regarding rotations and consistent teachers. In case you haven’t noticed, I am a strong proponent of consistency, but there are times in which a rotation may work (or may be the only option). We’ll look at a virtual potluck of principles in this last segment. And, as always, I welcome your comments, observations, suggestions, or experiences as we learn from one another and build each other up.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

They say the secret to a business’ success is location, location, location. But there are also those who suggest, for the small or medium sized church, that in order to have someone present the lesson to children each week, the secret is rotation, rotation, rotation. In other words, get a bunch of volunteers, put them on the schedule to teach each week, and then no one person has to miss out on the “main service” all the time.

But as I stated in the introduction to this series, it is my humble opinion that such a weekly rotation is counterproductive to effective children’s ministry. I believe there are three reasons why this is true. Reason number one was Inconsistent Preparation. Today, we present reason number two:

INCONSISTENT PRESENTATION

When it comes to making a children’s church hour pop and sizzle, Jan is tops. Every powerpoint slide is synched with the cd player. Because the church lacks a children’s praise band, Jan uses children’s worship dvds, each one cued and ready to go with nary a gap. And everyone remembers when Jan taught Noah’s Ark. The tub of water, the scale model of the ark, all the kids wearing animal masks, and the feel of the spray from the spray bottle as they marched around made memorable impressions.

The following week on the weekly rotation is Margo. As I watched Margo, she was friendly enough with the kids. She sat them down on the floor in front of her chair. And then she pulled out….the teacher’s manual. With little or no eye contact, she began to read the lesson to the children. It’s not that she was a bad reader…she wasn’t. It’s just that it sounded like…..well, like she was reading the lesson. At one point, the lesson directed the teacher to show the kids the particular prop for that story. Margo stopped, set the book down, picked up the prop and held it up, picked up the book again and resumed reading.

Volunteers have mixtures of talents and gifts. No two teachers are going to teach or present a lesson the same way. And I am certainly not advocating that we make them. But as we pointed out in the previous post, there should be an expectation of consistency. If a multi-media enhanced, upbeat music infused, participatory lesson is followed next week by faded flannelgraph punctuated by 30 year old camp meeting songs, it creates a massive disconnect in the overall children’s ministry plan. And it doesn’t take too many rotation cycles before the kids notice that certain teachers do a great presentation and certain ones don’t.

I believe the best place for rotations is with support roles. Unless your children’s church is so small that one person is all that’s needed, you still need folks who can circulate among the kids, help with games, crafts, or snacks, or lead a song or two. This is where a rotation is useful. But if you want a high level of consistency each week in the overall presentation or lesson, there needs to be a consistent teacher who is responsible for bringing the same level of presentation each week.

As always I welcome your comments, observations, suggestions, or experiences as we learn from one another and build each other up.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

They say the secret to a business’ success is location, location, location. But there are also those who suggest, for the small or medium sized church, that in order to have someone present the lesson to children each week, the secret is rotation, rotation, rotation. In other words, get a bunch of volunteers, put them on the schedule to teach each week, and then no one person has to miss out on the “main service” all the time.

But as I stated in the introduction to this series, it is my humble opinion that such a weekly rotation is counterproductive to effective children’s ministry. I believe there are three reasons why this is true. Today, we present reason number one:

INCONSISTENT PREPARATION

In many ways, Elaine is an ideal teacher. Before the teaching volunteer schedule is even typed, she has left three messages and an email wanting to know as soon as possible when her weeks are. She gets the teacher’s manual, makes copious notes, and does a careful verse-by-verse analysis of the Scripture that would make seminarian proud. She then turns her attention to crafting the lesson. Leaving nothing to chance, she rounds up her props, making sure they are functioning properly. She jots down notes on 3x5 index cards, which she will rarely refer to while teaching, as she has the lesson already committed to memory by the time her Sunday rolls around. And when that Sunday comes, Elaine is there an hour early, making sure the room is ready to go.

Back when we had teaching rotations for children’s church, I had a couple of Elaines. I wish I had had more Elaines, but actually, some of my teachers were like Doug. Doug is a likeable fellow and enjoys kids well enough. He was asked to be part of the rotation and readily agreed. He is especially grateful for the teacher’s manual, which lays out the entire lesson for him. On Wednesday, Doug looks at the schedule and sees that he is teaching on Sunday. He puts the teacher’s manual on his desk as a reminder to look it over. After showering on Saturday night (following a long day of ball games with his office league and yard work), Doug spots the manual right where he left it. Slapping himself on the forehead, he plops down on the couch, turns on the television, and begins reading over the lesson for tomorrow (“multi-tasking,” Doug calls it). Thirty minutes later, his wife finds him sleeping on the couch. The next morning, as Doug hurriedly dresses, he asks his wife to drive them to church so he can look over the lesson again.

Truth be told, most of the weekly rotation volunteers I had were somewhere between Elaine and Doug. And yes, there were some Dougs that really stepped up and made sure they were well prepared and some Elaines that slipped up and remembered their responsibility at the last minute. And while we’re at it, there are Sundays in which I am less prepared than I should be. But since children’s ministry is a week by week experience, there should be the expectation of consistency when it comes to preparation. Sadly, there isn’t. I realize good training and clearly spelled out job descriptions can alleviate some of this problem (and that’s a subject for a whole other blog), but in the small to medium church that is tied to curriculum, it becomes a challenge to convince folks who work hard all week and who “tend to the kids” once a quarter to invest even more time in study and preparation for their lesson. After all, it’s all spelled out in the teacher’s manual.

But if someone knows it is his or her responsibility to have a quality lesson ready each and every week, then it becomes “the thing to do.” Someone can dump an ill-prepared lesson on the kids once every three or four months and no one will necessarily remember. But one cannot go unprepared week after week, because then everyone will notice. Inconsistent preparation is one of the weaknesses of a weekly rotation. Having a consistent, primary teacher whose responsibility is to prepare the lesson each and every week goes a long way into building a quality children’s ministry.

As always I welcome your comments, observations, suggestions, or experiences as we learn from one another and build each other up.

Monday, June 20, 2011

One of the questions (aka “veiled suggestions”) that has often come up in my years as a children’s ministry director/children’s pastor is: “why don’t you get a bunch of volunteers and rotate the teaching each week, so you don’t have to do it all the time?”

On the surface, it seems like a reasonable solution to a common problem. If you rotate the teachers, you won’t overburden any of them. And if you do it weekly, your teachers won’t be out of the “main service” too long. It seems entirely logical; indeed, many churches have a weekly rotation of their teachers. In fact, our church used to have a weekly rotation.

1. I’m assuming a large group, children’s church type of setting, and not a separate, dedicated, graded Sunday School type class.

2. The teacher is the main presenter of the lesson. We’re not primarily talking about helpers, song leaders, support volunteers, and so on.

3. The church is a “single service” church; that is, there is no opportunity to teach one hour, then attend the main service the next hour (“ah-hah”, my larger church brethren are saying.“That’s why this is a problem!”)

4. There is a backstory as to how and why I have come to these conclusions. I’ll be sharing it at a future date (it won’t be as dramatic as the E True Hollywood Story, but there might be a few children’s pastors who can relate).

5. The views expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect those of the leadership, staff, or members of my church.

And of course, I welcome your comments. I would be particularly interested in how your church handles rotations, particularly if you have just one service. My word is certainly not the final one on rotations. When all is said and done, I'm a still a student of children's minsitries, so we can learn from one another.

Monday, June 06, 2011

This past Sunday, we had a less than normal turnout for our Large Group (Children's Church) time. As we sang in worship, I looked out and, of course, I knew who would be sitting, arms crossed, maybe talking with a buddy. And I was right. I mean, I've gotten used to those I call the "less than engaged." We all have them. Kids who just sit there with blank or no expressions. We do not have a large ministry on Sundays, so it's easy to spot them. It becomes painfully easy to spot them when our numbers are cut by half. Sometimes, these children will offer their unsolicited evaluation of the kids' service by breathing a heavy sigh and saying (loudly), "this is boring."

After our singing and games, I launched into the lesson from Daniel 1. I began describing the Babylonian captivity of Judah and how Daniel and his friends were swept away to a strange land. And out of the corner of my eye, I spotted...the hand. It belonged to one of my "less than engaged." And I knew it was probably a request to use the bathroom. At first I tried to ignore it, but the hand was still up. And so I said (with my best Teacher Tim smile), "hold on one second and then I'll get your question." The hand went down and I continued the section of my lesson. But when I mentioned "Babylon" again, the hand went back up. So I called on the boy with the hand.

"ummm, yeah," he started, "Isn't Babylon like where Iran is today?"

My jaw dropped. I recovered enough to affirm what he had said and did a little Bible geography (which was for a later lesson) on the spot. I knew his parents were very Biblically literate and had no doubt taught him this at home. But in spite of what I saw on the outside ("less than engaged"), this young man was actually tracking on the lesson enough to connect Babylon with modern Iran.

This wasn't the first time I have been surprised by one my "unengaged" kids. I did a lesson on prayer that seemed well received by most of the kids, but not neccesarily by one of the guys who was "too cool" for this. The lesson had 4 points about how God answers prayer.

Three days later, I came across one of the "unengaged" with a group of his peers. I walked close enough by to hear one of the kids ask about how God answers prayer. I was about ready to launch into my presentation, when the unengaged kid began rattling off the four points (along with the illustrations).

It's a basic of education: kids learn in different ways. I believe it was singer Rob Biagi who said that the kids who don't sing in our church are probably singing at home. Lessons that you think aren't going anywhere are probably getting absorbed on a variety of levels. Obviously, it is our goal as teachers to try to hit as many buttons as we can. But even if we aren't consciously doing that, it is encouraging to know that, often times, even those who seem "less than engaged" might very well be connecting with the worship or lesson on a level of which we are not aware. And when that connection manifests itself, prepare for more jaw dropping moments.